A Framework for Practice: The Best Interests Case Practice Model Summary Guide

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A Framework for PracticeThe Best Interests Case
Practice Model Summary Guide
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Program Outline

• Overview of Best Interests Case Practice Model
  (BICPM)
• The BICPM Summary Guide
• Strategies for leading the integration of the
  BICPM into your workplace

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Introductory Activity

• What have you had to leave behind to come to this
  training?
• Why did you nominate for this role?
• What questions do you have about the Best
  Interests Case Practice Model and promoting its
  use among your staff?

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The Best Interests Framework
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How it all fits

• The Children, Youth and Families Act 2005
• The Best Interests Framework
• Best Interests Conceptual Overview
• Cumulative Harm Conceptual Overview
• Best Interests Case Practice Model
• Resource Guide Summary Guide
• (under development)
• Trauma and Development Guide Specialist
  Practice Guides

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Learning and Development Strategy

• Phase 1 Preparing for Enactment
• Phase 2 Embedding Reforms
• Phase 3 Ensuring Lasting Cultural
• Change

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Lead the way!!
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What we do and How we do it
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Key Message

• We can only do the What we do effectively if
  we attend to How we do it

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Key Message

• The Best Interests Case Practice Model is a
  process and a way of thinking.
• It is not an event.

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What is it not?

• A checklist
• A tool to be done
• A prescriptive document
• A manualised treatment model
• An additional task to be added to peoples
  workload
• All new concepts

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The Model as we know it
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Trauma and Development

• The parents of the children we work with are
  often impacted by trauma themselves.
• Remain compassionate to the distress that
  children and families experience and mindful that
  anger and resistance usually reflect the hurt and
  overwhelm that lies beneath (Summary Guide p.15)

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How trauma and deprivation can impact on
parenting

• Inability to regulate own emotions
• Never learning what healthy parenting looks and
  feels like.
• Not knowing what to expect for healthy
  development
• Dissociative states
• Misinterpreting childs normal behavioural and
  developmental responses as an attack.
• Projecting image of perpetrator on to the child.
• Maladaptive survival strategies, such as
  substance abuse.
• Fear of childs anger
• Currently in fear or traumatisation.
• Living in a state of chaos and crisis that crowds
  out anything other than survival
• (Annette Jackson, Take Two/Berry Street)

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What we do and How we do it
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Information-Gathering

• Any risk or safety assessment or future
  casework is only as good as the quality of
  information on which it is based
• BICPM Summary Guide
• p.17

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Tools for Information-Gathering How we do it

• Genograms
• Eco-maps
• Timelines
• Assist in drawing out the familys story
• Assist practitioners to think and act
  systemically

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Analysis and Planning
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Analysis

• The BICPM is based on a professional judgement
  model analysis supports workers to make
  considered judgements and to be able to clearly
  articulate the rationale behind these judgements.

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Professional judgement

• It is important that practitioners are aware
  of the problems associated with professional
  judgement. These problems include a lack of
  recognition of known risk factors, the
  predominance of verbal evidence over written, a
  focus on the immediate present or latest episode
  rather than considering significant historical
  information, and a failure to revise initial
  assessments in the light of new information.
• (Munro 1999)

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Resource

• Key reference
• Effective Child Protection Practice (Eileen
  Munro, 2002)
• - relevant to all who work with vulnerable
  children and families, not just Child Protection
  practitioners.

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Analysis

• Research and experience has shown that there
  is usually lots of information available about
  the child and family, however reviews of practice
  often find that there was insufficient shared
  analysis to form a good plan
• Summary Guide p. 9

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Analysis Risk Assessment

• The BICPM should not be viewed by practitioners
  only as a risk assessment tool it is a
  framework for practice.
• The BICPM asks us to carefully analyse the
  information we have, taking into consideration
  historical, systemic and ecological factors, to
  inform our risk and needs assessment, as well as
  our planning, actions and review.
• Key message The BICPM does not become
  redundant once you have done your risk assessment.

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Definitions

• Harm/Cumulative Harm
• Impact
• Vulnerability
• Sustainability
• Culture
• Activity define these terms

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Harm - Considerations

• What has happened or is likely to happen to
  the child?
• Distinguish between harm and harm-causing
  behaviour
• Describe the evidence of harm i.e. injuries,
  behaviours which indicate harm, developmental
  delay that has been assessed by a medical
  professional as non-organic, high-risk adolescent
  behaviours etc.
• Harm acts of omission and commission

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Cumulative harm

• Childs unmet needs harm to development over
  time
• Research evidence has shown that a child can
  be as severely harmed by the cumulative impact of
  less severe risk factors e.g. neglect and family
  violence, as by a single, severe episode of harm
• Summary guide page 8

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Impact - Considerations

• What effect has the harm had on the childs
  safety, stability and development?
• How severe do you judge this impact to be?

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Vulnerability - Considerations

• Considering the childs age, stage, culture and
  gender, how do these factors increase/decrease
  this particular childs vulnerability to further
  harm?
• Does the childs particular temperament/personalit
  y impact on their vulnerability to further harm?
• Does the child have a physical/intellectual
  disability that adds to their vulnerability to
  further harm?
• Are there socio-economic factors that make this
  child more/less vulnerable to further harm?
• Do family patterns indicate increased
  vulnerability to the child?

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Sustainability - Considerations

• Where strengths and/or protections have been
  identified, how do we assess the likelihood that
  they can be sustained over time?
• Strengths should not be confused with safety

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Culture - Considerations

• Culture is a broadly-defined concept that
  encompasses a childs core identity, the meaning
  of that identity to that child and their family,
  and the wraparound scaffolding that maintains
  that cultural identity i.e. family/cultural
  connectedness (extended family, community),
  family rituals and customs, stories and music
  etc.
• Key message Culture is not a Yes/No question
  to be ticked off!!

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Thinking
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Taking a good look
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Putting the pieces together
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Making sense of it all
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The 5 Cs
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Articulating Your Analysis

• Practitioners need to be able to present
  evidence to the Childrens Court that shows the
  effects of harmand future risks to childrens
  safety, stability and development. The Court will
  also want to know the rationale for professional
  judgements and decision-making, what assistance
  has been provided to the family and the outcomes
  of previous interventions, all supported by
  evidence.
• Summary Guide p.4

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Articulating your Analysis
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Articulating your analysis
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Articulating your analysis
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Articulating your analysis
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Articulating your analysis
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Activity Articulating Analysis

• Harm and impact what is going well/not well for
  Jake and what are your thoughts about the reasons
  for these?
• Pattern and history (constraints/strengths)
• Beliefs and relationships (constraints/strengths)
• Current environment (complicating factors,
  system/service factors) (constraints/strengths)

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Key Message

• Any plans and recommendations that we develop
  must clearly and logically flow from our
  analysis.

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Action

• Any action should be based on sound analysis
  and be purposeful towards engaging the family
  members in a change process
• Summary Guide p.38

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Action

• Engagement of the family in an action plan is
  fundamental to its success
• True engagement is when the family signs on to a
  common agenda for change.

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Engagement

• Possibly the strongest indicator of engagement
  is when you feel you can talk about change
  without fear of jeopardising the relationship
• (The Bouverie Centre 2006)

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Family Group Conferencing and Aboriginal Family
Decision Making

• AFDM and FGC give a strong message of partnership
  and empowerment to the family.
• AFDM is culturally appropriate
• AFDM/FGC convenors exist in DHS in each region
• We must give greater consideration to engaging
  absent fathers and their families

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Implications for Practice - Children

• Effective therapeutic and enrichment
  interventions must recruit other adults in a
  childs life caregivers, teachers, parents to
  be involved in learning and delivering elements
  of these interventions, in addition to the
  specific therapy hours dedicated to them during
  the week. (Perry, 2005, 38)

www.childtrauma.org
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Key Message

• Where there is harm, referral to another
  service will not ensure that the family will
  engage or that change will occur. There needs to
  be active casework to ensure that the family
  engages with the service in a meaningful way.
• (Summary Guide p.29)

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Review
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Review

• Review is the continual process of being
  curious about our effectiveness
• Summary Guide p.45

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Review

• Review information frequently. Identify gaps.
  Be open to changing your initial views rather
  than interpreting new information in a way that
  supports a pre-existing opinion of a child or
  family
• BICPM Summary Guide p.17

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The childs lived experience
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Spot the difference

• 1. The child is at risk due to exposure to
  parental substance abuse, the parent has refused
  to access a treatment service and has not
  complied with Child Protections investigation.
  This child needs a safe and stable environment
  where her physical and emotional needs are met.

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Spot the difference

• 2. The childs physical safety is at risk as the
  parents substance use occurs when the parent is
  the sole supervisor of the child. The child
  displays evidence of harm to her development in
  her delayed speech, her untreated eczema and her
  significant weight loss over the past month

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The model is

• relationship based, child focussed, family
  centred
• ecological and systemic
• culturally competent

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The model is (cont)

• developmentally and trauma informed
• gender aware and analytical
• dynamic and responsive

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The model is (cont)

• based on professional judgement
• strengths based
• outcomes focussed

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Reflective Practice

• The BICPM requires reflective practice
• In Victoria there is a strong commitment to
  strengthening a culture of reflective practice so
  that the best interests of children are achieved
  (p.49)

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Reflective Practice
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Forums for Reflective Practice

• Supervision
• Case conferences
• Peer supervision
• Team meetings
• Individual reflection
• Reflective Practice prompts are in the Summary
  Guide (p.49)

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Activity Where to from here?

• What are we doing well?
• Where do we need to further develop in terms of
  Best Interests?
• What strategies can I use to promote Best
  Interests
• Within my team
• Within my organisation
• Across services in my local area
• Across my region
• What networks/resources do I know of that can be
  a part of this strategy?

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Where to from here?

• Possible obstacles to embedding the Best
  Interests Case Practice Model?
• Crisis driven dealing with the urgent,
  neglecting the important
• Were too busy
• I already act in childrens Best Interests,
  always have.
• Workplace culture
• Hierarchy
• CRIS compatibility
• CSO Registration process
• Resources
• Recruitment and retention
• What can we as champions do to address these?

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Obstacles
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Program Outline

• Overview of Best Interests Case Practice Model
  (BICPM)
• The BICPM Summary Guide
• Strategies for leading the integration of the
  BICPM into your workplace

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Resources

• every child every chance documents on website
• The Best Interests Framework
• The Best Interests Principles Conceptual
  Overview
• Child Development and Trauma Guide
• Cumulative harm Conceptual Overview
• Stability Guidance Paper
• Strategic Framework for Family Services
• Fact Sheets
• Reference list at back of Summary Guide
• Child Protection Practice Manual

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Resources Specialist Practice Guides

• By end 2008
• Working with vulnerable infants
• Young people 10-14 years with problematic
  sexualised behaviours
• Children under 10 years with problematic
  sexualised behaviours
• Engaging parents assessing and enhancing
  parenting capability/capacity
• Working with young people
• Working with families in which someone is abusive
• By mid 2009
• Stability child and family
• Stability in long term out of home care
• Stability and issues associated with
  reunification
• Cumulative Harm

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Lead the way!!